I realized it then.
Something I probably knew for days but wouldn’t admit to myself.
Stella had been the one to place the call from my father’s house to Charter. No one else. Probably the result of a command issued by David long ago, lying dormant until the day it wasn’t.
She seemed to know what I was thinking. “He told me to call when everyone was together.” She didn’t face me. Her eyes fell to the ground. “David is right. This is the only way to truly end all of this. All traces of Charter need to disappear, traces of their program, the people involved. Anything left behind will be like the seed of a weed. It will only grow back, maybe stronger than the first. We will forever run. They will always be behind us. All of it needs to end.”
“Stella, these people are our friends, our family.”
“Your own father stood by and watched as they tried to kill you. As you’ve pointed out many times now, this woman,those peoplemade me kill. Made David kill. We were only children. How could we know it was wrong?”
David said softly, “Remember what I told you, Stella? That day in my cell? What I whispered to you?”
Stella peeled the glove from her right hand and dropped it at her feet. “You said when the time came, I’d get to kill them all.” She took off the left glove and dropped that one, too. “My God, David, just how long did you think I could wait?”
“All of it will be over soon. Then you and I can finally be together,” David said.
She smiled at him, a smile that was like the sharpest stake through my heart. “That’s all I’ve ever really wanted.”
Stella hobbled past Latrese Oliver to Dunk and knelt in front of him.
“Get the hell away from me,” he growled.
“This one killed your friend Gerdy, didn’t he, Jack? The man who owned the diner, too. All those people inside. Just to get rich. To line his pockets. Won’t you be happy to see him die? Isn’t that what he deserves?” She reached out and ran her finger along the edge of his shirt, millimeters from the skin of his neck. “How many others died because of his actions since? The poison you push?” She looked back at me. “In a way, Jack, their blood is on your hands. Why didn’t you let him burn in the diner?”
Dunk remained still, unable to move. David’s doing, no doubt.
“It wasn’t me,” Dunk forced out, fighting Pickford’s spell. “It…was all…Alonzo. Never…me. I…wouldn’t.”
David looked up at me, saw the uncertainty in my eyes. “You don’t believe him?”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“If I tell him to tell the truth, he’ll have no choice. I’ll make a wager with you, a gentlemen’s bet, if you will. I will make him tell you the truth, but if he really was responsible, if he just lied, then he dies first. I’ll even let you kill him.”
“I’m not killing anyone.”
“But you want the truth, don’t you?”
I said nothing.
David shrugged, “Well, now I’d like to know. You’ve got my curiosity piqued.” He turned back to Dunk. He cleared his throat in some grand fashion. “Did you do what Stella accused you of? Are you responsible for the deaths of those people?”
Without hesitation, the single word flowed this time, unhampered by David’s former instruction of silence. Trumped by this new command.
“No,” Dunk said.
His eyes met mine, and I knew he was telling the truth.
He always had been.
I knew I had been wrong.
Dunk said, “My friends, my true friends, are the only family I’ve ever really known. Those people were my friends. I’d do anything to bring them back.”
Stella buckled over again. This time, she did collapse. She fell to the ground, clutching her stomach. She let out a horrible shriek, and the radios screamed with her, a choir of pain.
When it was over, David said to her, “You need to feed, Stella.”
